This paper investigates seven early education practitioners' attitudes towards multilingual activities and translanguaging as well as their actual practices in Luxembourg. They took part in a professional development comprising a course, coaching, and regular meetings to deepen their understanding of multilingualism and language learning, and enable them to implement activities in multiple languages. The findings, drawn from questionnaires, observations, and interviews, show that all practitioners opened up towards multilingual activities and translanguaging, increased activities in such languages, and translanguaged frequently. The practitioners analyzed their beliefs and practices, connected theory and practice, constructed new knowledge, developed positive attitudes and changed their practice. This study is the first one to investigate the attitudes and practices of professionals in formal and non-formal education settings as well as the effect of professional development in Luxembourg. It also addresses the research gap regarding professional development on multilingualism in early childhood.

While multilingual programmes have been implemented in early childhood education in several countries, professionals have shown to be unsure of how to deal with language diversity and promote home languages. Therefore, there is a need for professional development. The present article discusses the outcomes of a professional course on multilingual education in early childhood delivered to 46 early-years practitioners in Luxembourg. Using a questionnaire administered prior to and after the course as well as interviews, we examined the influence of the training on attitudes to multilingual education and activities to develop Luxembourgish and home languages. The analysis drew on content analysis, paired samples t-test and correlational analysis. The findings show that the course positively influenced the professionals" knowledge about multilingualism and language learning, their attitudes towards home languages, their interest in organising activities in the children"s home languages and the implementation of these activities. The results shed light on special interest areas such as the quality of input that future professional development courses could focus on.

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Young children's socio-emotional skills are important for understanding their own and other's behaviours and interactions. No study in Serbia has investigated this before. In this study we explored the links between early socio-emotional skills, behaviour, and mathematics and literacy performance of preschool children in Serbia over time. Children (N = 159) aged 5-8 were rated by the teachers on their socio-emotional skills and behaviour, and their literacy and mathematics assessed at three-time points over 14 months, twice in preschool and once at entry to school. At Time 3, when children entered school, their socio-emotional skills and behaviour were associated with gender, mathematics at Time 1 and their socio-emotional and behaviour ratings at Time 2, controlling for maternal education and literacy at Time 1. Mathematics at Time 3 was associated with mathematics at Time 2, controlling for gender, maternal education, literacy and behaviour at Time 1. No socio-emotional skills or specific behaviour were significant for mathematics. Literacy at Time 3 was associated with mathematics and social skills at Time 1, and literacy at Time 2, controlling for gender and maternal education. At all three times, girls were rated more positively than boys in socioemotional skills and behaviour, except for adjustment to school setting where there were no differences. This study offers the first insight into the links between socio-emotional skills, behaviour and mathematics and literacy performance of preschool children in Serbia which will inform the development and evaluation of interventions. Attrition of the sample limits the findings.

Based on an analysis of the video recording and transcript of one lesson chosen by preschool teachers in Luxembourg as an example of translanguaging pedagogy, this article shows the teachers' limited understandings of translanguaging. As a result of a new 2017 multilingual education policy for early childhood, the first author designed a professional development project in which the teachers in this preschool participated. During a lesson, the teachers insisted that these young children had a home language associated with a national affiliation depicted by a flag, despite the children themselves telling them repeatedly that their home language practices were complex and included Luxembourgish, which was part of their identity. The teachers' actions and discourse reveal raciolinguistic ideologies and misappropriation of the term translanguaging to simply implement what could be better described as a multilingual awareness activity. On the surface, the teachers have shifted from monolingual instruction to one that recognizes the children's multilingualism. Yet, teachers continue to associate the notion of language with flags and political states, instead of taking up an inside-view of the bilingual speaker, the kernel of translanguaging theory.